The Weight of Light

There is a moment in the desert when the heat stops being a burden and becomes a presence. It settles into the dust, waiting. We spend our lives looking for things that last, building walls against the wind, forgetting that the most profound things are those that arrive only to leave. A bloom does not ask for permission to open. It does not worry about the drought that preceded it or the frost that might follow. It simply happens. To witness such a thing is to be reminded of our own fragility, the way we hold onto memories as if they were solid objects, when they are really just light filtered through a thinning veil. We are made of the same temporary stuff as the season. If you stand still enough, you can hear the silence that follows the falling of a petal. What remains when the color finally fades into the earth?

Ana Sylvia Encinas has captured this fleeting grace in her photograph titled Golden Rain. It reminds me that beauty does not need to be permanent to be true. Does it speak to you of the same quiet departure?